Creatures we recognize as dragons appear in Scandinavia for millennia. Two opposing interpretations of the dragon’s role have emerged in scholarship: according to one view, dragons are hostile and negative, pitting humans against a monstrous adversary; the other perspective, by contrast, understands dragons as being beneficial to human society. Against the background of this wide-ranging debate, my comments localize the discussion to Iron Age Gotland and its evidence for how dragons may have functioned both before and after the arrival of Christianity.

Stephen Mitchell is Professor of Scandinavian and Folklore at Harvard University. With a joint appointment in Scandinavian and Folklore and Mythology, Professor Mitchell’s research and teaching address a wide variety of genres and periods of Nordic culture and literature, and issues in folklore, centering on popular traditions, mythology, and legends in the late medieval and early modern periods. He has also written on diverse topics such as Scandinavian drama and women’s autobiographical literature in the 17th century.